Wednesday, 5 April 2017

Greetings again, Maria Grazia, and thank you infinitely for
hosting the My Mr. Darcy & Your Mr.
Bingley blog tour—it’s first stop, too, you brave lady! It is a pleasure to
be back at My Jane Austen Book Club. Hard to believe we met here four years
ago, for the debut of The Red
Chrysanthemum! You have requested I share an unpublished vignette from my
new novel with your readers, and since you and I both adore Colonel
Fitzwilliam, I offer this little scene. (I’ll just mention I gave the dear
colonel the Christian name Alexander in my third novel, A Will of Iron and my best friend loves it so, I’m likely to stick
with it, rather than the ubiquitous “Richard”.)

To set the scene, we have the Colonel heading to bed
in the room saved for him at Darcy House. He and Darcy suffered a less than
enjoyable evening at the London theatre in a box adjoining that used by the
Gardiners and their guests, Jane and Elizabeth Bennet. It is about ten days
since the contretemps between Darcy and Elizabeth at Hunsford. The colonel has
been scolding Darcy, but has now retired from that particular field of battle.

Colonel Fitzwilliam Remembers His Youth By Linda Beutler

Colonel Fitzwilliam closed the door to his bedchamber
at Darcy House and leaned his back against it. His cousin Darcy was in grievous
pain with nothing to be done to save him. The colonel huffed resignedly. Elizabeth Bennet…

He had rarely known a lady with such pleasing manners.
He smiled. It was a near thing that he had not formed his own attachment, but
between his cousin’s self-serving warning—for the colonel had read the motives
of his cousin correctly when he spoke of Elizabeth Bennet’s lack of fortune—and
his own preference for blue eyes, a disaster was diverted.

He pushed himself from the door and settled in the
chair by the fire. A decanter of something dark and probably delicious lurked on
the little table at his right hand, but he resisted. With age and experience
came a modicum of wisdom. He stretched his legs toward the fire and mused
further about his poor, love-inflicted cousin, and what it might be to love so
completely.

It was a fixed feature of his boyhood that he would be
a soldier. As a second son he was for the clergy or the army, and for whatever
reasons, his parents had seen him as fitted for one eventuality and not the
other. Perhaps it was the peripatetic habits of childhood, always careening
about whether inside or out, that sealed his fate. Rectors ought not ramble.
Soldiers could.

It followed that as the colonel’s thoughts wandered,
he would arrive at the green of Lambton and his last summer at Pemberley. He was
sixteen years old and had received his commission only long enough prior to
have two uniforms in his possession. His mother had been adamant he receive a
proper education before entering military life, and his ear for languages and
love of history thus honed would come to serve him well—bless her. Of course his dear mother had also been the first to
haul him away, once she had learned of his…

…What was it? A dalliance?
Hardly, we were so innocent. A mere acquaintance? No, there was something more…
A childhood infatuation? Yes. A passing affection, paling with the years and
distance.

There she is! He had seen her before on
the village green, herding small siblings with ease and grace. He sat on a
bench to watch this time. Her mouth widened to laughter. A little brother hid
behind a tree to remove his shoes and stockings before reemerging to squish the
mud in a drying puddle between his toes. The child could not suppress a
telltale squeal of delighted sensation. His glee was the source of his sister’s
laugh. She had later admitted she could never be angry with him, the youngest.

A little sister, not much older than the muddied
brother, pulled the young lady down for a whispered word. The young lady stood
and looked him full in the face (she later admitted this littlest sister warned
her a soldier watched). After studying him a moment, she blushed brightly and
turned away. He felt himself blushing too, to have those lovely sky-bright eyes
on him. Was she his age? She was tall. Her pale honey-hair was plaited, and the
plaits bundled onto the back of her neck, topped by a straw bonnet. She was
light and lovely—a young pussy willow with golden stems and plush shiny fuzz at
the top. Or so had run his youthful metaphor.

The colonel’s thoughts ran ahead, heated by the fire.
He had been ungodly sick on his first crossing to the continent. For reasons
passing understanding, elder officers decided seeing to the relief of his
virginity might be of some remedy to him when they reached Calais. He squinted
into the flames to recall that first woman, but there had been several
after—French, Italian, paid for, freely given, and the rare English widow—all
of no consequence, truth to tell. Perhaps
my heart is not easily touched.

But I do remember her, vividly. The next morning he had ridden to Lambton early in the
day with Darcy, four years his junior and still a reed-like sprout. They tied
their horses at the edge of the village and Darcy hied off to the smithy on the
far side of the green. Fitzwilliam had wandered into the woods and come upon
her, walking alone. Plucking up his soldierly courage, he introduced himself. Pardon me, I am Alexander Fitzwilliam, er, Captain Alexander Fitzwilliam.

And for this you should be
pardoned?

Her eyes twinkled. He was smitten before offering any
resistance, and the spread of her smile as he demanded her name in return
deepened his youthful admiration. She only confessed to her first name, never
hinting at more.

You seem young for a
captain, but I admit to knowing little of such matters.

She challenged him endlessly, and never gave an inch
in their battles of wit. He was enchanted and began picking wildflowers,
pressing them into her hands. He promised to return the next day at the same
time, if she would promise to be there. Fey,
unknowable creature, he mused. Even now he remembered this first flutter
with more detail than for any he had known as a man knows a woman.

They had met several more times, thinking themselves
unseen. She revealed little of herself, but drew from him boyish admissions of
daring-do and family connections; anything he could say to impress her must be
said. Now, so many years later, he knew she had laughed at him, but she did keep to their meetings with
flattering precision. Her actions proved she wanted to spend time with him.

What a sanctimonious
prattling youthhead I was. As they walked he held her hand, but would not kiss her lest
he raise her hopes. She must be of the village; his honourable treatment of
ladies had been drilled into him since before he could remember. Do not kiss
where it would lead to ruination—yours or hers—he had been taught. It was all
so much hogwash now.

It was such a long, long time ago. Yet here in Darcy’s
comfortable house, in the room vouchsafed him by brotherly affection, Alexander
Fitzwilliam the man—not esteemed officer or paltry Don Juan—could remember no
other women save the girl he had not kissed. They had been seen. His mother,
with calm and patience, explained the error of his ways (as if he did not know),
and he was at Matlock before he could blink. Two years later, when his family
thought time and a promotion had rendered him safe, she was gone away from
Lambton. She was known by his description of her, but he had no time to inquire
further. Orders were orders, and he had just received his next. Upon
reflection, this was damning evidence of a heart immune to love, a heart for
whom it was easy to walk away from enamoured interest.

The colonel shrugged against the soft upholstery. He
was such a man, and was settled to his fate.

~~~~~~~~~~

But in My Mr.
Darcy and Your Mr. Bingley, the colonel does meet his fate. More, I cannot
say! Thanks again, Maria Grazia, and all of your readers at My Jane Austen Book Club,
for allowing me to share Colonel Alexander Fitzwilliam’s back-story. I
sincerely hope you will approve of his future.

Linda Beutler

About the Book

Jane Bennet had a
heart to break after all, and I am a party to it.

—Fitzwilliam Darcy

One simple, uncharacteristic subterfuge
leaves Fitzwilliam Darcy needing to apologize to nearly everyone he knows! When
Charles Bingley reaps the sad repercussions of Mr. Darcy’s sin of omission,
Elizabeth Bennet’s clear-eyed view of the facts gives her the upper hand in a
long-distance battle of wills with Mr. Bingley’s former friend. By the time Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth meet
(repeatedly) in the groves of Rosings Park, neither knows the whole truth
except that somehow, someway, their future is inextricably linked to the
courtship of Charles Bingley and Jane Bennet.

In
this Pride and Prejudice “what-if”,
the additional dash of backbone and “far-sighted” action to the character of
Mr. Bingley begs the question: how is Mr. Darcy to impress Elizabeth Bennet if
Bingley does his own matchmaking? And how is Elizabeth Bennet to trust Mr.
Darcy when even faith in a most beloved sister falters? (Includes
mature content )

About the Author

Linda Beutler’s professional life is spent
in a garden, an organic garden housing America’s foremost public collection of
clematis vines and a host of fabulous companion plants. Her home life reveals a
more personal garden, still full of clematis, but also antique roses and
vintage perennials planted around and over a 1907 cottage. But one can never
have enough of gardening, so in 2011 she began cultivating a weedy patch of
Jane Austen Fan Fiction ideas. The first of these to ripen was The Red Chrysanthemum (Meryton Press,
2013), which won a silver IPPY for romance writing in 2014. You might put this
down as beginner’s luck—Linda certainly does. The next harvest brought Longbourn to London (Meryton Press,
2014), known widely as “the [too] sexy one”. In 2015 Meryton Press published
the bestseller A Will of Iron, a
macabre rom-com based on the surprising journals of Anne de Bourgh.

Now,
after a year-long break in JAFF writing to produce Plant Lovers Guide to Clematis (Timber Press, 2016)—the third in a
bouquet of books on gardening—we have My
Mr. Darcy and Your Mr. Bingley bursting into bloom.

Oh that was lovely, Linda. Thanks so much for sharing it with us. Who is this mysterious young lady I wonder and why did the Countess think her unsuitable? Does he ever meet her again? Will we find out in the book?

Thanks everyone, and especially Maria, for making day one a lovely and unique start. The great thing about a blog tour starting a little after the novel's actual debut is that I get a chance to address some of the issues that have arisen in reviews already posted at places like Amazon and Goodreads. I have been criticized for not having the dear colonel be a "Richard", but as long as my very best friend has such a strong and favorable reaction to "Alexander", "Alexander" he shall be! Further along on the blog tour I shall be interviewing the colonel! Jane Bennet has drawn her fair share of negative comment, too, so we'll also be hearing from her.

Lol, lovely Colonel Fitzwilliam story, Linda. And I love how you handled his fate in the book (no spoilers). I was one of these 'reviewers' on Amazon and Goodreads, as I had a couple of words for Jane as well, but she redeemed herself later in the story. :)

Please, add me to the giveaway, as I have read the book on KU. I wouldn't mind owning it . ;)

Linda, do you ever frequent the Jane Austen Variations website? In February, Jack Caldwell posted a hilarious story about P&P characters waiting in limbo for the next fan fiction story to come in. The Colonel and Wickham are playing cards and they have this conversation when the next one arrives:

"Fitzwilliam had already opened his. “Regency… Yep, here I am.”“What’s your name this time?” asked Wickham.“‘Richard.’ Crimeny, you’d think they would come up with another name sometime soon.”“At least it’s not ‘Algernon.’”“Too right, there.”

I always enjoy seeing what names that authors come up with, for those characters not specified by Jane Austen. And it's also amusing (in a sad way) to see the reactions of those who INSIST that the fanon names are canon!

About Me

I've been an English teacher for a long time now and a blogger for more than 5 years. I love classic literature, reading, theatre, period drama, art and that is what I usually write about on FLY HIGH and My Jane Austen Book Club. I'd love to hear from you! Leave your comments to my posts or send e-mail messages to learnonline.mgs@gmail.com.